Archive Result

20051210GRMLLLR13

Chinese translation Interesting, you know if you look in the images, those images are made out of metal, whether it is cobalt or brass or gold or silver or whatever, made out of body and the real Buddha’s body is not made out of cobalt, gold, you know. But it is made out of millions of virtues. The reasons why we accumulate merit, why we purify, why we do good things is because we do want that type of body and that type of body is not made by the gold or silver but made out of millions of virtues and that’s why it’s special and not just because it’s gold or silver or Prince or whatever. These are not the reasons why it is special. 0:01:46.6 Chinese translation

Praising Buddha does not mean ‘Wow you’re great’. Praising Buddha here is also giving us a role model to follow. This is very important not to overlook that. It’s not Buddha is great, Buddha is great, no doubt about it, either you agree or not agree, doesn’t matter. Buddha is great. That’s not the point. The point is the greatness of that. I’d like to get it, you’d like to get it, we would like to get it. That is the point. 0:03:10.9 Chinese translation And also you know I’d like to tell you one thing if you really- I don’t know, that way you talk something nice. But then there are some special qualities that people do get it.

Take the Dalai Lama as example. The Dalai Lama, people like him. Wherever he goes people see him and say ‘How wonderful, great’ and this and that. Whatever he does, doesn’t matter, whatever he does, but people really like him and so somehow people sort of feel devotion or feel happy with him. He draws the people you know, you see it now. And that is because it is made by the millions of virtues, not just a person. If it is simply just a person, then why you and I [don’t] draw attention of people like Dalai Lama draws? But then you may say ‘Well, Dalai Lama’s famous’ and no one made him famous, he became famous because people like him. Honestly. But you know, he’s not like a movie actor, he’s not like a politician, he’s not like- you know he didn’t write great, you know artist or things like that but just because of his quality, people 0:05:22.7 [inaudible] and this is the example that we can look what we are talking about, Buddha’s 0:05:29.8 [inaudible- image?]. Buddha’s body is made of millions of virtue and also it’s called worthwhile seeing. The moment you saw it, it becomes worthwhile, people say ‘How wonderful, great’ and this is the virtues that you accumulate in your lifetimes, lives and that becomes aspects of your body and that’s what’s happening. 0:06:02.6 Chinese translation

Now the second is the speech. It’s wonderful speech and not 0:07:48.7 [inaudible: important?] blah, blah, blah but most important thing is that speech, whatever Buddha says it fulfils the wishes of the people and that is the most important point, quality of speech. Fulfilling the wishes of the people. People wish to have liberation, people wish to overcome difficulties, people wish to overcome negative emotions so Buddha’s speech fulfils that and that’s why I have to 0:08:33.9 [inaudible], I’m sorry. That’s why your enlightened speech grants the wishes of limitless beings. 0:08:47.5 Chinese translation And what kind of wish-fulfilling speech comes out of it? It is coming out of mind of knowing everything, total knowledge. Nothing not known to the mind of the Buddha and that’s why it’s called enlightenment. There is nothing, if there is something to be known, it’s known to the Buddha. If there is nothing else to be known- so that’s why total knowledge means knowing everything. Not only knowing everything at the present level but also past and future as well. So you know, presently knowing is easier than knowing future because future changes but Buddha’s knowledge of knowing future is what change going to take finally why it’s going to happen. All known same time together, to the person, that’s why it’s called enlightened. 0:10:46.2 Chinese translation

Then the second verse is praising to the most outstanding- Buddha’s teachings are actually you can basically say two different teachings. One profound which is compassion and love et cetera and another important point is the wisdom part of it which was sort of carried by two great beings such as Maitreya Buddha which is going to be the future buddha- future official buddha- and Manjushri, the wisdom embodiment of all enlightened beings. This is the praise to these two great beings. 0:12:40.5 Chinese translation

Ok so the next verse is just like Manjushri and Maitreya, there are two great Indian sages- you know why we’re doing this? Because it’s showing the continuation of the teaching from Buddha to Indian masters such as now Nagarjuna and Asanga. As you know Nagarjuna is the outstanding authority of wisdom. Asanga now is human level. Asanga is again outstanding authority of the love and compassion and there are actually 8 early Indian masters which is sort of known as head honourment and two excellencies so earlier Indian masters. So Nagarjuna and Asanga, both of them, sort of the forerunners of Buddhist teaching as human level. Carrying the banners of the Buddha are the Nagarjuna and Asanga. 0:14:52.0 Chinese translation

Then the next is the transition between early Indian tradition to Tibetan and that is a different 0:15:55.0 Shiri Gana or Atisha. Again, a great prince who happens to enter into monastery and great scholar, great teacher, great practitioners and who brought, perfected Buddhism in Tibet in the 1100s. It’s not the beginning of Buddhism in Tibet. Beginning of Buddhism in Tibet is almost 600s, 700s. And then after, all kinds of things happened in Tibet so it’s he reformed all true Buddhism in Tibet and that’s why Atisha was brought in to show the transition from Indian tradition into Tibet. 0:16:59.5 Chinese translation

Then the next verse will be praising to all the masters, all the masters who taught this far and helped people and so it’s generally to all the masters. That’s fifth 0:18:25.7 [inaudible]. Chinese translation And then the number 6, number 6 and 7, 8, since I don’t have the Tibetan with me so, and also I don’t remember the Tibetan words, I didn’t memorise. Well, I did memorise earlier, forgotten. So but it seems to be giving the qualities of this particular teachings. First up to here, it shows the continuation and the lineage from Buddha till Tsongkhapa and that obviously means up till now, there’s continue from living person to another living person it’s teaching continues. And that makes living tradition, not a dead tradition but a living tradition. 0:19:47.4 Chinese translation Now the next era of such a great thing is coming from Buddha which means 2600 of wisdom continuously coming. That’s why it’s so great about it and that’s why it is a living tradition. If that is so, what is special in this? So just give me a synopsis of what is special in there. So the special in here, the quality of the teaching, what does that do to me? That will do to you every spiritual path, wherever you can see, whatever you can hear and read and understand. Particularly that of authentic, spiritual path like all the Buddha’s teaching path. Non-contradictory. You’ll be able to see it clearly. It complements each other, does not contradict each other. 0:21:43.0 Chinese translation

For example, it’s really clear here. For example in certain teachings of the Buddha will emphasise not to eat meat. Certain teachings of the Buddha will emphasise to do eat meat. And for me, it is contradiction. But if you know, this teaching followed properly, even tiny little point of eating meat, not eating meat and even that contradiction will not contradict you, it complements each other because of the meat of the individual. 0:23:21.5 Chinese translation Each one of those points have value. For example, eating meat is bad, no doubt about it. Chinese translation It hurts animals. That’s their flesh. Chinese translation It’s not not having negative. It is negative. Chinese translation Vegetarian’s great. Chinese translation And it also hurts people and living beings too. You can’t overlook that. Every vegetable does not grow in Pure Land. Chinese translation So all problems are there. Chinese translation And then I am supposed to believe that without eating anything. 0:25:29.3 Chinese translation And that’s wrong because number 1, you can’t survive and number 2, the human life is so precious and this is also contradiction there.

So this sort of contradictions you’ll see and then you’ll see contradictions between Vajrayana and non-Vajrayana. 0:26:02.7 Chinese translation And then you see contradiction between Mahayana and Theravadanyana. As you see it today, it’s happening. I don’t have to tell you, you see it yourself. This is a place, Malaysia and Singapore and all this area, is the place where you can see those contradicting each other everywhere else. 0:26:42.5 Chinese translation So what’s happening is what Tsongkhapa’s telling us here. You see the teachings of the old Buddha, non contradictory. So after knowing this path, you should know, you will be knowing Mahayana is based on the Theravadan teachings. 0:27:25.8 Chinese translation

Vajrayana is part of Mahayana. Chinese translation And Mahayanas cannot look down on the Theravadan and say ‘We’re the Mahayana and we’re great’ but you have because without Theravadan principles you don’t have Mahayana. Chinese translation Theravadans cannot look up to the Mahayanas and say ‘We’re pure and they’re little impure’. You can’t do that because they are much more pure than you are. They’re the pure land people. [Laughter] 0:28:38.5 Chinese translation So the Vajrayana person cannot think that ‘We’re sitting in the jet plane, we’re ready to go, you people are going to stay, bye-bye’. You can’t think that because your wings that fly are the Theravadan principle and the Mahayana principle. If you don’t have Theravadan, you don’t have Mahayana, you don’t have wings to fly first. 0:29:26.6 Chinese translation So basically, when Tsongkhapa saying non-contradictory of Buddhist teaching, he means that. Chinese translation

Ok 0:30:07.1 tsu no mo… Second quality is everybody almost wanted to have kind of special instructions for me. You know it is our habit, we are always looking for special instructions for me. What Tsongkhapa’s telling here is every teaching of the Buddha, each and every word is a special teaching for you. There’s nothing separate. 0:30:44.0 Chinese translation At tha… The third quality is what is really Buddha is telling us? And we can clearly understand, we can understand much better. You really get the Buddha’s message by this. These are the qualities we are talking about. 0:31:37.1 Chinese translation For example, some of the teachings, some of the sutras, we say there’s no ear, no nose, no tongue and no eye, no this, no that. So, I mean you do have eye, you do have ear, you do have nose, all of those and what I mean by this and that help you understand that by this. That’s what it means. 0:32:20.1 [inaudible] who knows the Buddha’s intention and Buddha’s message, totally. 0:32:28.9 Chinese translation

And the most important quality here, the last one and that it if you have eyes to create a perfect karma and cut the negative karma and that also very big negative karmas, automatically because you’re informed, you’re thinking, you’re meditating so you’re going to cut automatically big wrongdoings. 0:33:24.8 Chinese translation And such a quality, even though Buddha’s teachings carry that quality, the collected Buddha’s teachings is a huge volume so we cannot easily to be able to make it. But what Atisha has done is Atisha has done, when Atisha was first invited to Tibet, it was not easy for the Tibetan kings and they have to lose their life in order to get Atisha into Tibet, kings’ lives. 0:34:33.5 Chinese translation

And when they first came, the new king is the nephew of the king who lost life and he asked ‘I don’t want something very mystical or mystic or ritualistic but I want a solid, Buddha’s way of developing which is great Indian masters and scholars and saints practice and simple for student Tibetans who don’t know much detail, not sophisticated. Very sort of dull people so please give us a solid, concise but simple’. So Atisha provided that and that’s why Tsongkhapa say Atisha made it easier to be able to practice. ​​0:36:09.1 Chinese translation

There’s a correspondent, Tsongkhapa’s correspondent with one of his teacher. In one of those correspondents he wrote to one of his teachers saying, he’s saying ‘There’s a tremendous, great treasure of early Indian text on the Buddhist point of developing individual but I found most easy and helpful and effective way of helping simple people is Atisha’s way so whenever I’m trying to help people, I’m following Atisha’s footsteps’. That’s what Tsongkhapa writes. In one of his letters published in his collected works and even I read that in there so that’s how Tsongkhapa expressed to one of his teachers. When writing, he said ‘Atisha’s way is becoming extremely helpful, simple, easy to understand, easy to practice so I’m leading people for that part’. 0:38:21.9 Chinese translation So that is the verse number 8 and up to this- whatever they call it- pre-practice things, so I think we’re roughly covered. Chinese translation

Now the verse 9 is actually beginning of practice level. Chinese translation Before we go to the practice level, it is necessary to have a prerequisite activities. Chinese translation The prerequisite activities are the prayer that you say in the morning. 0:40:10.0 Chinese translation So let me count what are prerequisites, likely 6 points. Chinese translation Point 1, it is important to maintain cleanness. Chinese translation It’s the traditional teaching says cleanness Chinese translation which really means creating a perfect atmosphere. Chinese translation If the atmosphere is bad and you want to practice in bad atmosphere, you know how difficult it is. 0:41:12.7 Chinese translation And cleansing the atmosphere is also- the place is also two points. Chinese translation Point 1 Chinese translation it is purification. Chinese translation

Point 2 Chinese translation it is the accumulation of merit. Chinese translation If you don’t think that, if you have to clean up your place, it is unnecessary. Ok it’s unnecessary burden. Chinese translation If you know what you are doing, it’s a necessary chore that you have to do everyday as well as a great practice. 0:42:17.9 Chinese translation You may think cleaning is a job of a helper. Chinese translation Over here it’s still better but in India, cleaning is the job of 0:42:45.7 jabada, it’s the lower caste. They can’t even come through your door, they have to come from backdoor somewhere and without touching anywhere else. Come in, sweep and go away, you may think that. 0:43:06.1 Chinese translation

During the Buddha’s lifetime there was a very devoted family who had no son at all so they keep on saying ‘What to do, what to do, what to do? We need a son, we need a son’. You know the Indian culture- without son, you're in trouble. Especially if you have a lot of daughters, my god. The family will be bankrupt. [Laughter] So that was the Indian, early Indian culture. So they want a son, so what to do? So somebody said, some clever person said ‘Alright, the moment baby is born’- some soothsayer said ‘The moment baby is born, take the baby in the big street and approach any yogis that come through and say ‘Please pray for this son’.

So they had a maid, a maidservant and they sent the baby with maid and on the roadside and all so many great Hindu masters and Buddhist masters, all came one after another so the 0:44:52.5 [inaudible- maid?] approached the teachers and they all said ‘This child will live long and have great intelligence and join my order and be a great scholar’, one after the other and finally, Buddha came. Buddha said ‘This child will have a great longevity and wisdom and finally join my order and become an arhat, outstanding arhat’. 0:45:23.8 Chinese translation And he really became. And then the brother. And they did the same thing with maid. This time, this maid happens to be lazy one, she didn’t go in big road, she just sat in the some kind of backdoor street somewhere, keep on waiting for whole day, nobody came through. 0:46:50.5 Chinese translation